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May 25, 2016

"I was told when I grew up I could be anything I wanted: a fireman, a policeman, a doctor - even President, it seemed. And for the first time in the history of mankind, something new, called an astronaut.
But like so many kids brought up on a steady diet of Westerns, I always wanted to be the avenging cowboy hero—that lone voice in the wilderness, fighting corruption and evil wherever I found it, and standing for freedom, truth and justice.
And in my heart of hearts I still track the remnants of that dream wherever I go, in my endless ride into the setting sun.”
--Bill Hicks

May 18, 2016

Police were ready to declare Gotham's most eligible bachelor dead after he disappeared from the social scene in 2009. But when the billionaire playboy suddenly reappeared last fall -literally crashing the gates of rapper Sean Combs's annual "White Party" in a Ferrari Enzo-- commissioner James Gordon admitted rumors of Wayne's death were "batty." Shares of Wayne Enterprises stock are up significantly year over year, thanks to the leadership of CEO Lucius Fox, and a new project to franchise security outfits around the globe. Wayne says he's planning to celebrate the company's success with an extensive remodeling of his "man cave" in stately Wayne Manor.

May 16, 2016

Believe it or not, I only recently watched House of Cards. That’s got to be surprising for some because I do tend to speak about politics a lot and I’m a big Kevin Spacey fan. Here are some thoughts I had after finishing all four seasons:

It's well-written, superbly acted, and beautifully shot.
First two seasons are the best. Season Three lost something big with the Frank versus Claire turn. The two of them working together is part of what makes the show work. In season Four, I think the show jumped the shark with the Underwood/Underwood ticket. I don’t think that would ever fly in real life.

I’ve seen people ask about why they made Frank Underwood a Democrat. Well, making him a Republican would be too obvious and you’d have a lot of people accusing the show of “liberal media bias.” Secondly, if you’ve paid any attention to the current election, you’ve hopefully woken up to the fact the DNC is crooked and shady as hell. So, yeah…

Not surprised the show is popular with folks in Washington. Is politics that shady? If you have to ask, then, again, you haven’t been paying any attention to the presidential primaries. But what House of Cards does is make everyone hyper-competent at getting away with manipulation and dirty dealing so it’s a kind of political wish fulfillment for the assholes in office.

I think The Underwoods are the Clintons if the Clintons were more attractive and adept at hiding their underhanded dealings.

When Will Conway says, "And I'm a New York Republican, which is basically a Democrat,” I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Because marketing is the only thing that hides the lack of any real divide between parties.

The biggest problem I had with House of Cards is a problem that I’ve run into with a lot of shows. Everyone is so terrible that there’s no one to cheer for. No one you really want to see come out on top. Hammerschmidt, in Season Four, probably comes the closest. Unfortunately, he's a plot device character. And while I really do want him to bring the whole thing toppling down, my guess is that’ll probably never happened.

Watching House of Cards and thinking about the rise of hit shows starring completely terrible people like Frank Underwood, Don Draper, and Walter White and all those shows being populated with a cast who are generally unlikeable, made me understand Trump and really grok something about the dark undercurrent of the American psyche: Deep down in our heart of hearts, we like a bully. Specifically, a white male bully with an overblown sense of self who gets and does what he wants.

May 14, 2016

I think enough people have watched the second season of Daredevil by now that I can offer a couple of thoughts about it. This season was really a toss-up for me—in some ways it was better, in other ways, it was worse—especially coming on the heels of Jessica Jones which was so goddamned perfect.

The Good:

Season Two Is A Natural Occurrence Of The Events of Season One: If you’ve watched that first season then you get more out of your investment, but I think it’s structured so you could easily come in with the second season and not be lost. You’d think this would be a no-brainer but it’s not. I’ve seen a lot of shows have a great first season, then feel like they either have to change everything for the second or that they literally have to do the exact same thing over and over.

Fisk: I had no idea that he was going to show up at all, but his role this season was perfect. Perfect. I mean, what a great way to make sure you know Fisk’s not done while still giving Daredevil something new to focus on.

The Punisher: I really can’t say enough good things about Bernthal’s portrayal of Frank Castle or the amazing job the writers did finally giving the character a proper screen adaptation.

Foggy and Karen: I loved the two of them this season. Loved them. They really shined bright. Loved their character arcs. Love the possibilities going forward. I could have watched whole episodes of them without any superheroics.

Elektra: Much like with The Punisher, it was nice to finally see Elektra done right. And even though the actress isn't Greek, at least she looked foreign and not like a girl from Kansas.

The Bad:

The Gore: This one really bothered me a lot. For some reason, they decided to turn the gore factor in the fight scenes up to 11 this season. I don’t know if it was because Jessica Jones dealt with mature themes and violence was the easiest route for the writers of Daredevil to up the grit, but it was a mistake. It was off-putting to a lot of people. It made some really great fight choreography hard to watch. It added nothing to the show. And, honestly, if anything, for me, it took away. It’s hard to have Matt’s side when he’s trying to take the moral high ground against Frank for not “killing,” yet his treatment of thugs in the fight scene you just watched was so brutal and graphic and gory that realistically half of them would be dead before someone called an ambulance.

The Hand/Black Sky: This was all introduced last season and not really explained. Nothing much else gets explained this season. In fact, a lot gets dropped (Matt apparently doesn’t care about the gigantic hole they made in New York City). It’s obvious this is probably going to be what occupies The Defenders when they come around, but I absolute hate when writers introduce a plotline and it’s fucking obvious they have no clue exactly what’s going on or what it means. Also, by the time they got around to it in this season, I was so invested in everything else, that I didn’t really care much.

Elektra: Even with the reveal at the end, I think the writers killed her way too soon and really wasted tons of potential story.

The Blacksmith Thing: Clancy Brown’s character turning out to be the man responsible for the death of Castle’s family was next level dumb. Especially since his character basically gets introduced, then never gets seen again until he’s revealed to be “The Blacksmith”. Honestly, it was like watching an episode of Law & Order when they have a special guest-star—“Oh, the guest star did it.”

Matt Murdoch: This season he’s the least interesting and engaging character. And he’s an awful lawyer to boot.